I feel the need to extend a cautionary word for the many of you who have read my previous stories and are looking for this one to parallel those. While in some ways it will do that, this one is different enough that I think a word of warning is in order. This story is grittier, rougher, more disturbing, and you may not find it to be to your taste. Knowing that going in could be helpful to some, and adding this advisory in advance alleviates my conscience.
That said, I enjoyed writing it and would hope the majority of readers would find some satisfaction and enjoyment in it as well.
As always, my stable of editors did yeoman’s work filing off the rough edges, sanding the surface smooth and lacquering my words ready for shipment to you. They had more work to do this time, and accomplished it with their usual great skill and sensitivity. My appreciation of their efforts is boundless.
And of course, my thanks as always go to the Awesomest Dude around. Thanks for providing me a platform, Mike.
Cole Parker
September 2009
His day didn’t start well. And then it got worse.
Getting off the bus, he was bumped by Geoff Harper. Nothing unusual about that. Geoff delighted in bumping and elbowing and tripping and shoving him, with the occasional hit thrown in to seal the deal. Nothing he could do about it. It would be his word against Geoff’s if he told, and no witness would ever take his side against Geoff’s; they knew what would happen to them if they did. Geoff was considerably bigger than he was and enjoyed physically tormenting smaller kids. Him especially. He didn’t know why. There were lots of small kids. Geoff seemed to ignore some, and some others he hassled only occasionally. Him, it seemed it was every day, often more than once a day.
What made it even worse was, other kids who enjoyed bullying those who wouldn’t fight back saw how he reacted to Geoff’s actions, saw him do nothing to stop it. Some of them had started harassing him, too. Geoff wasn’t his only tormentor now. Just the worst, the most frequent, the one he most dreaded. He hated the pain and humiliation, he hated the derision he heard from the other kids, and he hated the pleasure he saw in Geoff’s eyes when he was hurting him.
When he was bumped this time, he was just stepping down from the bus onto the curb while zipping up his jacket. Geoff was right behind him. The bump caused him to lose his footing, his shoe landed on the edge of the curb and his ankle turned. He yelled at the sudden pain, and his books and papers which he’d tucked under his arm went flying.
Geoff moved off immediately, taking care to step on every loose piece of paper he could.
“You all right, son?” The bus driver was leaning over him.
“No,” he said, trying not to cry. Crying always brought gleeful shouts from the other kids. His ankle felt like it was on fire. He lay on his side, holding it with both hands.
“I’ll get help,” said the driver. He walked up the sidewalk to the school, leaving the boy lying by himself on the blacktop next to the bus. Others getting off walked around him.
The boy’s name was Todd Mortensen. He was 14. None of the kids at school knew him. He was smaller than most, shyer than most, and didn’t make friends easily. He’d started the school year as a new kid, a transfer student, new to the city and the school, and had hoped to make friends. He was just starting high school, in the 9th grade, and all the other 9th graders were new to the school too, which was why he’d thought he had a good chance to make friends. But, on the first day, Geoff had singled him out. Geoff had seen the look on his face, knew he was new and scared like a lot of the others, and so he looked like the perfect target.
Geoff had tripped him in the hall, pushing him from behind and sticking his foot in front of him at the same time. Todd had fallen forward, hitting the floor hard. All the other kids had looked at him. Geoff had rushed to pick him up, squeezing his bicep hard, twisting his wrist. Todd had yelped, and when he was halfway to his feet, Geoff had let go and he’d fallen again. “Aw, that’s too bad,” he’d said, then laughed and walked away.
Ever since, every day, Geoff had managed to either hurt him, or pretend he was about to so that Todd would cringe and cower. Geoff would laugh. Sometimes, if no one was looking, sometimes even if they were, he’d laugh and then punch or pinch or elbow him.
Perhaps because of the attention he was receiving from Geoff, perhaps just because of how he acted, other kids who might have been friends, might have gotten to know him, left him alone. They had no desire to elicit Geoff’s attention.
Once, in a rare moment of courage, Todd had spoken to a teacher who seemed kinder than the others about what was happening to him. The teacher had told him he must talk to the vice–principal, and encouraged him to do so. Todd had walked toward the man’s office uncertainly, but in the end, couldn’t go in and confront the man. He’d seen him in the halls. He looked hard and totally unfriendly. Todd had overheard other kids talking about him. Mr. McCluskey. Everyone was afraid of him. He was mean, he hated kids, he loved assigning detention and then making the kids work on some unpleasant task, not even letting them do their homework. He was sarcastic and liked humiliating kids. Todd thought if he said anything at all to the man, he’d be yelled at, then dismissed as a coward who couldn’t defend himself. He knew this was true, and didn’t want some scary man reinforcing his low opinion of himself.
»»»» 0 »»»»
All the other kids were in school by the time the bus driver came back. A woman was with him. She looked down at him, still lying in the parking lot gripping his ankle. The bus driver did, too, then got back in his bus and drove off.
It was a chilly, gray day. He wore a jacket, but was still cold from lying on the hard, chilly pavement. A wind had come up, and just as the woman arrived to look at him, a light drizzle began to fall.
“Is it sprained?” the woman asked, standing above him. She seemed very businesslike to Todd, and not very sympathetic.
“I don’t know. It hurts.”
“Well, let’s see if we can get you inside, before either of us gets too wet.” She reached down and grasped him under both arms. “I’m going to pull you up. When I do, support yourself on your good leg.” Then she lifted him, surprised at how light he was, and when he was standing on one leg, she pulled him back against her body for balance, her arm around his chest.
“Can you put any weight on it? Just set your foot on the ground, no weight at all at first. What does that feel like?”
Todd put his foot on the ground. There was some throbbing, but it was feeling better. He tried putting just a little weight on it. It hurt, but not like at first.
“It’s not as bad as I thought,” he said, looking up at her face.
“Good!” She smiled down at him, losing some of her severity and seeming more human. “If you wrap your arm around my neck, maybe I can help you walk into the school.”
Todd reached up to do that. The woman was short, which was a good thing because otherwise it would have been too awkward. Even this way Todd had to stretch, but they were able to manage. By walking slowly, with Todd putting only a little of his weight on the bad ankle and the rest of his weight on the woman’s neck, they made it to the school, through the main doorway and into her office. He discovered then that she was the school nurse.
Her office consisted of one long narrow room with a retracted curtain in the middle. The front half had several glass–fronted cabinets containing medical supplies, her desk, a chair and a couch. The curtain hung on hooks which slid on a rail attached to the ceiling and could act as a partition when drawn, allowing for privacy in the rear portion of the office. That area contained a narrow twin–sized bed with a pillow and blanket, a washstand and two chairs.
The woman had him sit down on a chair next to her desk and raise his leg so it was resting on a low stool. She untied his shoe and loosened the laces. As she was very carefully pulling it off his foot, she asked him his name. He told her. She smiled at him and removed his sock, pushing his pant leg up, exposing his foot and ankle afterward.
She very gently squeezed his leg about halfway between his knee and ankle, then tightened her grip for a moment before moving lower. She continued her testing, working from his lower calf muscle down to the ankle. “Tell me when it feels uncomfortable,” she said.
When she squeezed gently around his ankle, it didn’t feel bad, but when she tightened her grip he winced. “I can feel that,” he said. “It isn’t too bad, but it’s sore. I don’t know if I can walk on it all day.”
She smiled again. “It’s not sprained. I’ll tape it, then we’ll see if you can stand up on it.”
She got a wide roll of tape and a gauze bandage. First she wrapped the ankle in the gauze, then snuggly wrapped it in tape. When she was done, she asked him to carefully stand and put his weight on it.
When he did, he found it would support him and wasn’t too painful. He took a cautious step, and then another.
He looked at her and his face showed relief. “I think it’s okay,” he said.
She watched him, saw his face, saw his eyes, then looked at his eyes again. She asked him to sit back down, to put his sock and shoe on, and to tell her how he’d got hurt.
He carefully turned and walked back to the chair and sat. He looked up at her, standing in front of him. She saw him crane his neck to meet her eyes, and told him to wait a sec. She rolled her own chair over to him and sat so their eyes were level. Then she asked him again to tell her what had happened.
He dropped his head. When he looked up, she saw he had tears in his eyes.
“I can’t.”
“Ah. That means someone did this to you. If you’d just slipped getting off the bus, you could tell me that. If you can’t tell me, someone else is involved.”
He dropped his eyes again.
She took a deep breath. “You can tell me. You really can. I know, if someone hurts you, they always tell you they’ll hurt you worse if you report them to anyone. They say it means you’re a coward and that you’re squealing if you tell. They say all the other kids will know you told on them if you tell, and know what a coward you are. Well, all those other kids aren’t helping you, are they? So who’s the coward? They are. The brave one, Todd, the brave one is the one who talks.”
Still, Todd kept his eyes down and didn’t respond. He began putting his things back on. He’d heard adults say lots of things like this in the past. Their world was different from his.
In a softer voice, the nurse asked, “Has this been happening before? Is this same person doing this a lot?”
Todd nodded, but didn’t say a word.
The nurse watched him for a moment, saw his shoulders start to shake, and then stop. She saw the effort he was making.
“Okay then. This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to call Mr. McCluskey and you can talk to him.”
“NO!” Todd looked up, blinking to clear his eyes. Through the moisture, the fear in them was still obvious.
“It’s okay. This is what he does. You’ll be fine, if you just talk to him. I’m going to call him. Don’t be scared. It’ll be all right. He’s not nearly as bad as he seems to be. He’ll seem scary. You have to overlook that and just talk to him.”
Todd looked back down, and the nurse could see him start to tremble. She hesitated, then moved over to him and hugged him. She knew she was violating official policy doing so. The school district, to avoid lawsuits, had adopted a policy shortly after the millennium against school administrators having any unnecessary physical contact with students. She usually obeyed the rule, even though she considered it silly, but with Todd, her maternal instincts took over. She hugged him regardless of what the policy said.
After a bit, she stood up and walked to her desk and picked up the phone. She turned her back to him and made her call, spoke for some time but quietly so Todd couldn’t overhear, then hung up and turned to Todd. “Mr. McCluskey will be here shortly. I’ve got to go; they need me in the cafeteria. Good luck, Todd.”
She looked at him a moment longer, almost spoke again, then left the room without doing so, closing the door behind her.
»»»» 0 »»»»
It was several minutes later when the door opened abruptly and Mr. McCluskey entered the room. He was slightly less than average height, and stocky. He looked strong. He had on a short–sleeved dress shirt and tie. His biceps bulged the sleeves of his shirt. His hair was cut extremely short on his head, but its red hue was still apparent. His face was redder still and that appeared to be his permanent coloring. Instead of a smile, he wore a scowl.
He saw Todd sitting in his chair, looking very small, his shoulders slumped, his head hanging down. He didn’t look up at Mr. McCluskey, didn’t in fact move at all.
Mr. McCluskey spoke as he usually did when addressing students, harshly and with anger lurking at the edges of his words. “What’s this, then? Who are you?”
Todd looked up at him anxiously, only meeting the man’s eyes briefly. “I’m Todd Mortensen,” he said, the tremor in his voice not entirely concealed.
“Well, what’s the matter? Why was I called? Where’s Mrs. Simmons?”
Todd shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. The cafeteria, I think.”
“And why aren’t you in class? I don’t abide malingerers. Speak up, boy? You should be in class!”
Todd started to speak, and found his throat dry. He swallowed, then tried again. “I turned my ankle. The nurse taped it for me.”
“So why are you sitting here? Get to class! I should put you on detention for just sitting here instead of reporting to your class, and for wasting my time.”
Todd didn’t know what to say to that. He hadn’t called Mr. McCluskey. He’d been told to wait for him, and that’s what he’d done. He felt like saying that, explaining and defending himself, but he rarely spoke back to adults, and in any event, this was the sort of adult who’d pay no attention to his explanation anyway. He’d dealt with enough men like this to recognize how this man would behave. He’d learned trying to defend himself usually had worse results than not saying anything at all. So, he simply sat.
“Didn’t you hear me, boy? Get to class! Now!”
Todd stood up, being careful with his ankle. It seemed to support him. Slowly, he began walking toward the door, trying not to limp.
“What’s the matter with you, boy? Why aren’t you walking faster?”
“I hurt my ankle, sir.”
“Do you think I’m deaf, or just stupid? Which one? You already told me that. The nurse fixed it, so you need to just walk regularly now, not be gimping around looking for sympathy. Now get moving.”
So, a little fearfully, not wanting to try but unable to object because he was thoroughly intimidated, Todd took a regular step, putting full weight on the ankle and bending it as usual. He immediately felt a sharp pain. In an attempt to stop it, he bent his knee and took his weight off his ankle, and then found himself falling forward.
Mr. McCluskey grabbed him and held him up. “I thought you said you were all right?” The anger was stronger in his voice.
Todd was fed up with the injustice he was feeling. Now he was being accused of lying, when he hadn’t done any such thing! He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to stand up as straight as he could, look into Mr. McCluskey’s eyes, and as terrifying as that was, give his long–bottled–up anger some free rein. He could imagine saying it, imagine what it would feel like to say, ‘No, sir, I didn’t say I was all right. You assumed it. You told me to stop limping, I tried and ended up hurting myself again. Now you’re saying that’s my fault. It isn’t my fault. It’s your fault I hurt it again. You’re just a bully, just being mean to me and you don’t know me at all. You find me in the nurse’s office and act like I’m pretending. I’m not. You know I can’t defend myself against you, and it makes you feel big. You’re just another bully I have to deal with!’
If only he could! He could imagine Mr. McCluskey’s eyes opening wider, his face turning purple, his expression changing from angry to outraged. He could imagine him shouting back at him, ‘Get to my office. Now. Limp all you want. Crawl for all I care. But get going.’
Todd was angry, but it wasn’t in him to say anything like that. Doing so would have been completely out of character for him. Instead, he lowered his eyes and said, “No sir, I didn’t say I was all right.”
“Well, if you weren’t, you should have said so. Doesn’t matter anyway. We need to talk. Come to my office. We can’t do it here. Follow me.” Mr. McCluskey turned and strode out of the nurse’s office, into the hall and off to his office.
Todd carefully tested his ankle, found he could walk slowly if he minimized the weight he put on it, and started out. At a much slower pace than Mr. McCluskey was setting, he followed him to his office through the empty and silent hallway.
»»»» 0 »»»»
Mr. McCluskey’s office, next door to the principal’s, was small. The old metal desk sitting in the middle of the floor had two straight and uncomfortable–looking wooden chairs in front of it, and the desk and chairs took up most of the space. The man himself was sitting behind the desk when one of the ladies who occupied the front administrative office showed Todd in.
“Sit down.” When Todd had done that, Mr. McCluskey began. “Okay, tell me what happened. How did you get hurt? I want to hear it, all of it, and I don’t want any beating around the bush. I don’t have all day for this. Go ahead.”
Todd didn’t want to tell on Geoff. It was part of the culture. You simply didn’t do that, and it didn’t matter that he hated Geoff. The story he’d always heard was that they’d get you worse if you told on them, no one could prevent it from happening, and everyone else would hate him, too, for ratting another kid out.
Mr. McCluskey was as intimidating as anyone he’d ever met. It was hard to imagine defying the man who sat glaring at him with such intense animosity and no sign of compassion, no empathy whatsoever. Well, Todd decided, he’d say what he could, but he wasn’t going to rat on Geoff. He thought it was certainly likely that if he did tell, Geoff would get him. There seemed to be a very unlikely possibility that Mr. McCluskey would protect him.
“I was getting off the bus and I turned my ankle on the curb when I stepped down.” Todd said this looking across Mr. McCluskey’s shoulder, pretending to look him in the eyes, then dropped his head.
Mr. McCluskey didn’t say anything. He simply sat and stared at Todd. Eventually, the quiet became too much and Todd looked up. When Mr. McCluskey had captured Todd’s eyes with his own, he said, “And what’s the rest of it? Boy, don’t even think about trying to fool me. I want the entire story, and I’m not going to sit here two hours pulling it out of you. Spit it out, now, or for the rest of your time here you’ll wish you had. I’ll make your life miserable. You’ll probably end up dropping out, and that won’t bother me a bit. I can’t stand snivelers. This is your chance. Your one chance. Now tell me what happened. And I mean everything.”
Todd felt he had no choice; the thought of having a harder time at this school than he already was, of having the administration against him as well as what seemed like half the students, didn’t bear thinking about. “I was getting off the bus and I got pushed. That’s why I tripped and hurt my ankle.”
“And who pushed you? Tell me, and no horseshit. What’s his name?”
Todd opened his mouth, and before he could speak, Mr. McCluskey yelled, “NO! I can see it in your eyes, you’re going to give me more horseshit. I don’t want anything but a name. You say anything else, anything but a name, you’ll be in deep shit. Now, the name!”
“Geoff Harper.” Feeling he’d just signed his death warrant, feeling he’d just somehow broken the honor of a tribe he was somehow a member of whether he wanted to be or not, Todd felt tears come to his eyes. He quickly brushed them away.
“Harper!” Mr. McCluskey said it with a special tone of scorn in his voice, and Todd could hear it distinctly. He didn’t say anything else for a moment, then leaned over the desk, closer to Todd, and asked, “And knowing him, he’s been doing other things, too. Hasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.” The scowl was unrelenting. If the man had a soft spot anywhere, it certainly wasn’t visible. Todd felt he’d already gone past the point of no return. So, he started talking and, once started, it all spilled out. Everything Geoff had done to him. And how he’d felt about it.
When he was done, Mr. McCluskey sat back in his seat, and looked at Todd without any expression on his face at all, his eyes similarly unreadable. At least the scowl was gone. Eventually, he picked up his phone, and Todd heard him tell whoever was on the other end to bring Todd Mortensen’s records to him right away.
Then they both sat in silence. When there was a short knock on the door, Mr. McCluskey hollered, “Enter,” and a lady brought in a file folder, handed it to him, and left.
Mr. McCluskey opened the file and spread it out on the desk. It only had a few sheets of paper in it. He read for a while, turning pages, then looked up. In a slightly less hostile tone, he said, “You’re an A student?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your transcript is from Hilliard Academy in New Jersey, one of the top private schools in the country. And you never received a grade below an A in the time you were there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you just moved here, and into my school district, from Bel Arbour, Florida?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know about Bel Arbour. It’s where rich people live. You rich?” Some sarcasm had crept into his tone.
“No, sir. I don’t have much money at all.”
Mr. McCluskey looked up sharply. “Don’t get smart with me, kid. Ever. Your old man have money?”
Todd wanted so much to say, ‘Ask him, not me,’ but couldn’t bring himself to do that. Feeling a little bit personally violated, like he was being asked something he shouldn’t have been, feeling he shouldn’t have to answer, he timorously responded anyway. “I guess.”
“You guess. And why did you move here from Bel Arbour? That’s a long move, from Florida to Connecticut. Your old man get fired or something?”
“No, he was promoted. He ran a division of the company down there, now he’s working at the company headquarters here.”
“And that’s why you live in Cypress Estates now? Where all the rich people live?”
Todd didn’t like this at all, but how could he not answer? Even if the questions were intrusive and obnoxious. “Yes, sir,” he said, and gritted his teeth.
“Then why aren’t you going to private school? Why aren’t you still at Hilliard? Why in god’s name are you riding the school bus?”
Todd started to open his mouth, then shut it. As difficult as it was, he decided he wasn’t going to answer any more of these questions that didn’t seem to him to have anything to do with a twisted ankle and the boy who was giving him a hard time.
“Well? I asked you a question.”
Todd allowed his eyes to rise to meet Mr. McCluskey’s. He quickly dropped them again, but was momentarily proud of himself for having the nerve to do it. “All that’s personal, sir.”
“Personal? Personal! Bullshit! Tell me.”
“No, sir.” Todd was feeling he might faint. He’d never, ever stood up to an adult, not since he’d been six. And this was not a normal man at all. To start with, the man was angry, and Todd didn’t handle adult anger well at all.
Mr. McCluskey half rose from his chair, then sank back down into it. He sat, watching a very uncomfortable Todd, then came to a decision.
“Go to class. When school’s over, report back here. You’re on detention.”
That was it. Todd had been pushed too far, and was sitting here with a sore ankle. For him, what he said next was tantamount to an explosion. “But why? That’s not fair! All I did was refuse to answer a question that wasn’t relevant to anything and was really inappropriate for you to ask! I’ve never been on detention. Never. And I don’t deserve it now. And, I’ll get in trouble because of it. You have no idea. I get hurt getting off the bus, and now you’re punishing me for it?”
Todd could rarely remember being this angry.
Mr. McCluskey’s expression changed. Todd couldn’t read it at all, but the hostility and anger seemed to leave it for just a moment. Then his original scowl returned. His tone of voice, however, was a bit more neutral than before. “Perhaps you’re right. Come to my office after classes are over this afternoon and we’ll discuss it.”
Todd wanted to protest further, but saying what he had had drained him. Even knowing what he knew, knowing what lay ahead of him, he protested no further. “Yes, sir,” he said meekly. “But I will have no way to get home.”
The hard edge was back in Mr. McCluskey’s voice. “Just do what you’re told. Believe me, you’re in shit deep enough right now that how you’ll be getting home tonight should be the least of your worries.”
Todd rose, didn’t look at Mr. McCluskey, and limped out of the room. He felt angry, abused and about six inches tall. He’d never had detention. He didn’t deserve it. Yet, he was almost proud of himself. He’d almost stood up to the tyrant. Almost.